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If one speaks about Brabant, one should know about wich Brabant one is talking, since Brabant doesn't exist anymore:

- The old Duchy of Brabant wich contained the present provinces of Vlaams-Brabant, Brabant-Wallon, and Antwerpen in Belgium, and Noord-Brabant and parts of Limburg in the Netherlands.- Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands.- Vlaams-Brabant and Brabant-Wallon in Belgium.

The Belgian and Noord-Brabant DNA-project started with about 500 participants with proven ancestry in the old Duchy of Brabant. A year later about 400 participants of the rest of Belgium were tested. Few candidats of the French-speaking south were found.

The project is still ongoing, and since the latest publication of the results, about 170 people from Belgium and the south of the Netherlands were tested.

Now, if they say 1000 Flemish results, I wonder where they come from. Mayby it is from the total project after all.

If one speaks about Brabant, one should know about wich Brabant one is talking, since Brabant doesn't exist anymore:

- The old Duchy of Brabant wich contained the present provinces of Vlaams-Brabant, Brabant-Wallon, and Antwerpen in Belgium, and Noord-Brabant and parts of Limburg in the Netherlands.- Noord-Brabant in the Netherlands.- Vlaams-Brabant and Brabant-Wallon in Belgium.

The Belgian and Noord-Brabant DNA-project started with about 500 participants with proven ancestry in the old Duchy of Brabant. A year later about 400 participants of the rest of Belgium were tested. Few candidats of the French-speaking south were found.

The project is still ongoing, and since the latest publication of the results, about 170 people from Belgium and the south of the Netherlands were tested.

Now, if they say 1000 Flemish results, I wonder where they come from. Mayby it is from the total project after all.

Regards,Jean-Pierre.

Its certainly a very interesting sounding project. Any project that can look at clades across a linguistic/historic divide and compare is of major interest. As well as suspecting U106 rises in the Dutch speaking areas I have a hunch that L21 and U152 will be patterned as well and that pattern could pre-date the arrival of U106. I would tend to think that, ignoring U106, L21 would rise relative to U152 as we move west and north and U152 will rise relative to L21 as we head south and east.

As well as suspecting U106 rises in the Dutch speaking areas I have a hunch that L21 and U152 will be patterned as well and that pattern could pre-date the arrival of U106.

I have a hunch it also pre-dates the speaking of Dutch, although those "areas" were there.

At the moment I am influenced by the variance studies to see U106 as being holed up somewhere like Poland and east Germany prior to an expansion in the late Bronze Age. That would make the low countries a place where L21, U152 and DF27 elements would have dominated the local R1b. I suspect the L21 in the low countries is linked to the local beaker culture with its links to the isles and NW France which may have continued as a dominant influence into the late Bronze Age when central Europe (U152?) influences came in from the south. I personally think that U106 didnt cross the Rhine until the Iron Age in the form of the Germanic elements among the Belgae. So, I suspect that in the Low Countries to the west of the Rhine in pre-U106 times, L21 (and maybe some DF27) may have been highest in the north and west and that U152 was higher on its southern areas.

The direction of connectivity of the Low Countries to the west of the Rhine shifted somewhat from a north Atlantic one to a central European one late in the Bronze Age with the inflow of Urnfield, Hallstatt and La Tene influence (this was true of the entire former north Atlantic zone at this time). However, I think that this was too late to change to eradicate the L21 element and may have often been influence rather than population change. L21 would seem easiest interpeted as a relic of a north Atlantic zone network that commenced in the beaker period c. 2500BC and didnt start to lose its grip in that area until 700BC when ripples of the more central European Urnfield, Hallstatt flowed in to varying degrees depending on distance from that zone. A lot of these changes may have been struggles among elites to control trade rather than large land annexation and it takes time for change of elite to impact large existing populations below them. Hence its a pretty mixed group in areas like the Low Countries and the impact or previous elites was never wiped out genetically.

Apparently the P312 clades - U152, L21, DF27, etc., - are higher among Walloons, and U106 is higher among Flemings. I think I would have been surprised had it been otherwise. That this reflects the old Celtic/Germanic divide should be self evident.

I understand the scope of the study is Brabant, not Belgium. Here is an extract.

"Now, a set of recently published and newly developed Y-SNPs were optimized to characterize all Flemish Y-chromosomes belonging to haplogroups G, R1b and T. Based on this set, it was possible for the first time to observe a significant East-West gradient in the frequency of certain R1b Y-chromosomal lineages in addition to a previously announced North-South gradient. "

The first goal was Brabant (in Belgium plus North-Brabant in Netherland) . Quickly, they extended the studies to all Belgium and they wished to extend to French Flanders.They reached theirs goals in North-Brabant and all Flemish parts of Belgium with success. But for cultural reasons and hostility of mass media, it was more difficult to success in french-speaking regions : They got about 55 testers in Wallony, not enough for scientific conclusions, this seems showing a bigger proportion of R-U152. In French Flanders, they renounced to study with the lack of interest. For results http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showthread.php?26032-Breakdown-of-Y-DNA-distribution-in-Belgium-by-province

Here are the temporary results for Wallonia (only 10% completed). Due to the small number of samples for each province, I have compiled an average for all Wallonia.